Transcript PSY 369: Psycholinguistics - the Department of Psychology at

PSY 369: Psycholinguistics
Language Acquisition
Announcements
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On-line Blackboard quiz for chapter 4 is now up.
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You may take it 5 times, top score counts
I am pushing Exam 2 back a day. We will have the
exam on Feb. 28.
Language development section includes information
from Chapter 3, pages 72-87
Homework #2 due Feb. 21st
Nice video series (6 parts) on language acquisition
Another nice clip about an experiment on infant language perception
Language Sponges
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Learning words
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General patterns and observations
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Sounds
Meaning
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Proposed Strategies/constraints
Learning Syntax
Learning Morphology
Language Sponges
Learning words
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12 ms
2 yrs
3 yrs
6 yrs
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first words
200 words
1,000 words
15,000 words
About 3,000 new words per year, especially in the primary
grades
As many as 8 new words per day
Production typically lags behind comprehension
Early word learning
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First words (Around 10-15 months)
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Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of
phonologically consistent forms
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1 word stage typically lasts around 10 months
Have learned first 50 words by 15 – 24 months
Typically focused on the “here and now”
Early word learning
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First words (Around 10-15 months)
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Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of
phonologically consistent forms
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1-general names
 “dog”
2- specific names
 “mommy”
3-action words
 “bye-bye”
4-modifiers
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“red”
5-personal/social
 “yes, no,
please”
6-functional
 “what”
Early word learning
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First words (Around 10-15 months)
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Emergence of systematic, repeated productions of
phonologically consistent forms
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Idiomorphs - personalized words
 Developed in systematic ways
 Not simply imitation, rather are creative
 Learned importance of consistency of names
“Adult words” - Typically context bound (relevant to the
immediate environment)
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Important people, objects that move, objects that can be
acted upon, familiar actions
 Nouns typically appear before verbs
Early speech production
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Transition to speech
This Your
is your
fis?
fis?
Oh, your fish.
No.No.
…My
my fis!
fis.
Yes, my fis.
Early speech production
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Transition to speech
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Can’t hear the difference?
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Your fis.
Oh, your fish.
Can’t produce the correct
sounds?
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Rejects adult saying ‘fis’
This is your fis? No, … my fis.
Sometimes, but evidence
suggests not always the case
More general process of
simplification
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“frees up” resources for
concentrating on other aspects of
language learning
No, my fis.
Yes, my fis.
Early speech production
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Transition to speech
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individual diffs, but some regularities
 Common Phonological processes
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Reduction
 Delete sounds from words (“da” for dog)
Coalescence
 Combine different syllables into one syllable (“paf”
for pacifier)
Assimilation
 Change one sound into a similar sound within the
word (“fweet” for sweet)
Reduplication
 One syllable from a multi-syllabic word is repeated
(“baba” for bottle)
Indeterminacy: Frog
Frog
Frog?
Green?
Jumping?
Ugly?
Indeterminacy: Frog
Frog
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Quine’s gavagai problem
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The problem of reference:
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A word may refer to a number of referents (real
world objects)
A single object or event has many objects, parts
and features that can be referred to
Frog
Frog?
Green?
Ugly?
Jumping?
Extensions of meaning
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Applying the words to referents
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Extension
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Finding the appropriate limits of the meaning of words
Overextension
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Applying a word too broadly
Mostly based on perceptual features (but other features too:
sound, movement, size, texture extension)
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Very common in early word learning (Rescorla, 1980 1/3
of first 75 words)
Underextension
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Applying a word too narrowly
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e.g., “round” only for their ball
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
1:9,11
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
“googie”
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
1:11,2
“googie”
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
1:11,2
1:11,24
“googie”
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
1:11,2
“googie”
1:11,24
1:11,25
“tee/hosh”
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
1:11,2
“googie”
1:11,24
1:11,25
1:11,26
“tee/hosh”
“hosh”
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
1:11,2
“googie”
1:11,24
1:11,25
1:11,26
1:11,27
“tee/hosh”
“hosh”
“pushi”
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
1:11,2
“googie”
1:11,24
1:11,25
1:11,26
1:11,27
2:0,10
“tee/hosh”
“hosh”
“pushi”
“moo-ka”
“hosh”
Extensions of meaning
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
1:11,2
“googie”
1:11,24
1:11,25
1:11,26
1:11,27
2:0,10
2:0,20
“tee/hosh”
“hosh”
“pushi”
“moo-ka”
“hosh”
“biggie googie”
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One-word-per-referent heuristic
Extensions of meaning
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If a new word comes in for a referent that is already named, replace it
Exception to that was “horse,” but it only lasted a day here
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
1:11,2
“googie”
1:11,24
1:11,25
1:11,26
1:11,27
2:0,10
2:0,20
“tee/hosh”
“hosh”
“pushi”
“moo-ka”
“hosh”
“biggie googie”
Strategies for learning
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Expansion and contraction can occur at the same time
“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
1:11,2
“googie”
1:11,24
1:11,25
1:11,26
1:11,27
2:0,10
2:0,20
“tee/hosh”
“hosh”
“pushi”
“moo-ka”
“hosh”
“biggie googie”
Strategies for learning
Child tries different things, if a word doesn’t work then
they try something else
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e.g., hosh didn’t for for the large dog, switched to
biggie doggie
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“tee”
1:9,11
1:10,18
1:11,1
1:11,2
“googie”
1:11,24
1:11,25
1:11,26
1:11,27
2:0,10
2:0,20
“tee/hosh”
“hosh”
“pushi”
“moo-ka”
“hosh”
“biggie googie”
Learning word meanings
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Learning words
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Fast mapping (Carey & Bartlett, 1978)
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Using the context to guess the meaning of a word
“Please give me the chromium tray.
Not the blue one, the chromium one.”
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All got the olive tray
Several weeks later still had some of the meaning
 Only took one trial to establish the mapping
video
Constraints on Word Learning
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Learning words
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Cognitive Constraints (Markman, 1989)
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Perhaps children are biased to entertain certain
hypotheses about word meanings over others
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These first guesses save them from logical ambiguity
Get them started out on the right track
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Mutual exclusivity constraint
Object-scope (whole object) constraint
Taxonomic constraint
Strategies for learning
Mutual exclusivity constraint (Markam and Watchel 1988)
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Each object has one label & different words refer to
separate, non-overlapping categories of objects
An object can have only one label
‘Show me a dax’:
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Kids choose the corkscrew
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it is a less well known object for which they don’t yet
have a label.
Strategies for learning
Object-scope (whole object) constraint
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Words refer to whole objects rather than to parts of
objects
Dog
Word condition
‘Here is a lux’
Strategies for learning
‘Show me another lux’
Taxonomy
response
Taxonomic constraint
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Words refer to categories of
similar objects
Taxonomies (categories)
rather than thematically
related obejcts
% Theme / Category
4 and 5 year olds' choice of theme vs. category
Theme
Category
No word condition
Novel word condition
Theme
response
No Word condition
‘See this? Can
you find
another one?’
Taxonomy
response
Theme
response
Strategies for learning
Shape versus function
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Category members often share shape and function.
Do kids use both pieces of information?
Landau, Smith, & Jones, (1998)
No Function
Name Q condition
Function
Name Q condition
‘Here is a dax. A
Dax can mop-up water’
‘Here is a dax’
‘Here is a dax’
‘Is this a rif/dax?’
‘Is this a rif/dax?’
Same
function
Same
shape
Same
function
Function
Function Q condition
Same
shape
‘Can you mop-up water with tihis?’
Same
function
Same
shape
Strategies for learning
Shape versus function
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Category members often share shape and function.
Do kids use both pieces of information?
Landau, Smith, & Jones, (1998)
3 yr olds
Shape
Function
92
76
58
38
18
No Function,
Name Q
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25
Function, Name
Q
Function,
Function Q
For kids, shape seems to be more important than function for
learning names. Adults focus more on function.
Problem with constraints
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Most of the constraints proposed apply only to object
names.
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There have been cases where children have been
observed violating these constraints
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What about verbs? (Nelson 1988)
Using for example the word ‘car’ only to refer to ‘cars moving
on the street from a certain location’ (Bloom 1973)
The mutual exclusivity constraint would prevent
children from learning subordinate and superordinate
information (animal < dog < poodle)
Language explosion continues
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The language explosion is not just the result of simple
semantic development; the child is not just adding
more words to his/her vocabulary.
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Child is mastering basic syntactic and morphological
processes.